Pass-Throughs

Pass-throughs are a shoulder mobility drill. You hold a stick (or a broom handle, or a dowel) with a wide grip, arms straight, and rotate it from front to back over your head and back again.

It sounds easy. It’s not — the first time.

Pass-throughs reveal shoulder tightness immediately. If your arms have to bend to get the stick past your head, you have work to do.

Why it matters:

• Develops shoulder mobility for pressing, snatching, jerking
• Essential prep for the overhead squat
• Reveals tight pecs, lats, and thoracic spine
• Improves posture

Setup:

• Stand tall, feet shoulder-width apart
• Hold a dowel, PVC pipe, or broom handle with a wide grip
• Arms straight — no bending

Execution:

• Hold the dowel in front of you, arms extended at shoulder height
• Rotate the dowel up and over your head, keeping arms locked
• Continue rotating the dowel down and behind you
• Return to the front along the same path
• Repeat

Primary Points of Performance:

• Arms locked (no bending)
• Full range of motion (front to back and back to front)
• Controlled movement
• Core tight

Common Faults & Fixes:

Grip progression: Start wide enough that the pass-through is easy. As mobility improves, narrow the grip. The goal is a grip just wider than shoulder-width with locked arms. That’s the snatch grip.

Training role:

• Warm-up for any overhead work (press, push press, jerk, overhead squat, snatch).
• Shoulder mobility development.
• Diagnostic tool — reveals restrictions in real time.

Programming:

• 10–15 reps in a warm-up, front to back and back to front.
• Combine with other shoulder mobility drills (dislocates, wall slides, thoracic extension work).
• Progress by narrowing the grip as mobility improves.
• Use before every overhead training session.

What it trains:

• Thoracic extension
• Shoulder flexion/extension (from full front to full back overhead arc)
• Scapular upward rotation
• Pectoral, lat, and thoracic flexibility

Benchmark:

• Arms locked, snatch-width grip, smooth front-to-back passes = excellent shoulder mobility
• Wider grip, some effort = average
• Bending arms = restriction

Anatomical demands:

• Pass-throughs require coordinated thoracic extension, scapular upward rotation, glenohumeral mobility, and pectoral/lat flexibility.
• Any restriction in one of these areas will force compensation elsewhere (usually arm bending or lumbar extension).

Common restrictions:

• Tight lats: prevent full overhead reach.
• Tight pecs: limit shoulder extension behind the body.
• Thoracic kyphosis: reduces the arc available for the stick to pass over the head.
• Shoulder capsule tightness: limits glenohumeral range.

Programming notes:

• Progressively narrow the grip only when the current width is comfortable.
• Never force a narrower grip — this drives compensation.
• Combine with specific mobility work for the limiting area (pec SMR, lat SMR, thoracic foam rolling).
• The pass-through is a test AND a treatment. Regular practice produces actual mobility improvement, not just temporary range.

Relation to Olympic lifting:

• Snatch grip width in the overhead position requires the same mobility as a narrow pass-through.
• If a pass-through is hard at snatch grip, the snatch itself will be limited by shoulder mobility.
• Many athletes improve their snatch simply by improving pass-through ability.